Posts Tagged ‘horror’

1. An familiarity with the plot to the new Naomi Watts thriller The Ring.
2. A rudimentary understanding of domestic cohabitation.

So, in essence; Married guys? This one is for you!

Actually, that’s not true. This joke can be enjoyed if, for example, you share a house or apartment with a couple of guys and one of them happens to be an obsessive neat freak. I suppose this could go for the ladies, too. Basically, any situation where you’re sharing living space with a bunch of other dirty, stinky humans will work.

Is anyone else interested in seeing The Ring? It’s gotten so-so reviews. I’ve read a lot of notices that claim trickery on the part of director Gore Verbinski – that he’s taken and awesome premise and watered it down with standard thriller cliches…

* THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST WAS LOST WHEN THEATER HOPPER MOVED TO WORDPRESS IN JANUARY 2009 *

Red Eye has been getting some pretty good reviews which has enticed me. There are so few well-done thrillers these days. Either it’s straight up action or some hack-em-up gore fest. Very little cerebral action in between.

I’d like to see Red Eye at some point to see if it lives up to the Hitchcock comparisons. Who would have thought Wes Craven would swerve in this direction? If the film ends up being terrible, I’ll just come home and watch Rear Window. It’s a win-win!

Can I just say that I really like the second panel in today’s strip. If my Sin City arc taught me anything, silhouettes can be your friend!

Not much to say at the moment. August has been a terribly fractured month. Between my trip to Wizard World Chicago, family emergencies, moving cubicles at work, taking training classes, having people come to paint our house, landscaping and taking a business trip next week I never know if I’m coming or going.

I know there are several of you waiting for your t-shirt orders to be fulfilled. Some of you have been waiting an EXCEPTIONALLY long time because when you ordered, I didn’t have anything in stock.

I reassure you that I haven’t forgotten about you. I have ALL orders in stock. Now it’s just a matter of sitting down and mailing things out in one fell swoop. I try to knock off a couple here and there, but I want to be sure I’m not missing anyone.

At any rate, that’s my life at the moment. Exciting, huh? I bet those of you who come to the site to read the blogs are REALLY enthralled!

Like John Irving or Alan Moore, Steven King is one of those writers who can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to the translation of his ideas to a visual medium. For every Misery, there’s a Thinner. One could argue that the best Stephen King adaptation contained the least amount of his vision. Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining stands a a beacon of psychological horror.

Maybe there’s less to be said about the filmmaker’s role in these adaptations as there is to say about King’s choice in subject matter. 1408 – originally a short story about a haunted hotel room – is another great piece of psychological horror that stands just below The Shining in it’s effectiveness.

In 1408 (on 2-disc DVD on October 2), John Cusack stars at Mike Enslin, a jaded author who abandons his wife after the death of their daughter writing travel novels about haunted hotels. He has become jaded in his travels and is thoroughly convinced that there is no such thing as an afterlife.

After another unsuccessful trip, he receives a mysterious postcard from The Dolphin Hotel in New York with the foreboding warning “Don’t enter 1408.” Intrigued, Mike begins to do research about the room’s grisly past.

It isn’t long before Mike is in New York squaring off against Samuel L. Jackson as the hotel manager Gerald Olin doing everything in his power to prevent Mike from staying in room 1408. He offers to upgrade him to the penthouse, bribes him with an $800 bottle of cognac and even gives him complete access to the hotels files on all the guests who’ve perished in the room so he will write his story and leave.

Jackson delivers an expertly grim performance as Olin. But only do the production diaries (an extra on the DVD) reveal the genius of his casting.

As written, Olin was a short, chubby white man of European descent. It was Quentin Tarantino who first suggested Jackson when he was given first pass at the script. An interview with Cusack summarizes things quite well. “If a English bellhop tells you ‘Don’t go in the room.’ you’re gonna go in the room. But if Sam Jackson says ‘Don’t go in the room.’ you DON’T want to go in the room. He’s a good crypt keeper. If it’s enough to scare Sam, it’s gonna scare you. So he gives it a kind of existential street cred.”

For all intents and purposes, the movie is being held up almost entirely by Cusack’s talent. Trapped in 1408, he is given nothing to interact with except the environment. As the room starts taking the shames of his past and using them as weapons against him, there is only Cusack there to convince you of the harrowing plunge into his own mind.

The first half of the film is effectively terrifying as director Mikael Håfström squeezes every last drop of tension from the commonplace surroundings of 1408 to keep you on edge. In what the film refers to as “the banality of evil,” you feel more fear waiting for something to leap out from the shadows than you do when things finally come off the rails and the haunted room starts to throw everything it has at our hero. To put it another way, after watching this movie you’ll never feel the same about “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters ever again.

I have a great deal of respect for this film. Not just for the performances or it’s director, but for the expert production design and effects work. Again, the production diaries reveal a great deal of 1408’s secrets and exactly what went into making such a confined space work in a horror setting.

Additional extras on the DVD are standard fare. Deleted scenes, webisodes, trailers and commentary from the writers and director. The film comes with both the theatrical cut and the extended directors cut with an alternate ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but the alternate ending isn’t much different from the original. It just adds an extra joy-buzzer jolt. So including it to add value to the purchase is somewhat superfluous. Cleverly, the packaging comes with fake postcards from The Dolphin inviting guests to stay in the room of the dammed.

Ultimately, 1408 probably will not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a film like The Shining, but Stephen King should be proud of the adaptation nonetheless. It is great entertainment that represents him well.

You might as well face facts. Pretty much everyone is going to be making jokes at the expense of Dr. Manhattan’s full-frontal nudity in Watchmen for at least the next week. Maybe two. If you can last that long, it’s probably the last you’ll hear about it.

Chalk it up to immaturity, I suppose. But I think there is something inherently comical about the nude male form. It’s so… inelegant. It deserves to be made fun of. Just… not when I’m around. I’m very self-conscious.

Sidebar: Fart jokes? Still funny.

So, let’s not waste anymore time, shall we? Watchmen. I saw it this weekend. What did I think about it?

I will admit to going into this movie with my expectations set very low. I can say I walked away having my expectations met. That’s a left-handed compliment. But, in the end, just another way to say that the movie was what I expected it to be. They didn’t completely ruin Watchmen, but they didn’t really do much better than the graphic novel. So, ultimately, I’m left looking back on it and asking “What’s the point?”

There are several things that Watchmen does well. Director Zack Snyder (stylist though he may be) does a good job of capturing the details and he knows which details are important.

I was particularly impressed by his interpretation of Dr. Manhattan. Much more than a big naked blue guy – in close-up, Snyder’s Manhattan looks like a an opaque, idealized construct of a man containing vast energies. You can see traces of it swirling and darting about beneath his skin. The eyes, instead of a hollow white, looked like a gentling expanding starburst.

And, of course, Rorschach’s shifting inkblot mask came off without a hitch.

David Hayter’s screenplay is economical while retaining the key elements that move the plot forward. I was surprised how satisfied I was with his simple solution to “the squid problem” in the climax of the movie.

I thought the performances and casting, for the most part, were excellent. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach is a snarling, sinewy standout (even though I had been bothered by his gravely, apparent graduation from The Christian Bale School of Superhero Voices in the trailer).

Billy Cruddup does a good job as Dr. Manhattan. Emoting as through a digital character is no easy task, but he delivered a palpable sense of Dr. Manhattan’s detachment from humanity while hinting at the greater being he had evolved into. He didn’t sound like I imagined Dr. Manhattan to sound like at first (he came off a little too calm, a little too Zen), but now I can’t imagine him sounding any other way.

I was even impressed by Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II. Given the unenviable task of playing a middle-aged sad sack, Wilson keeps the insanity around him tethered to the ground and plays the role with conviction.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan was also well-cast as The Comedian.

So if the movie looks right, sounds right and is performed correctly, what’s the problem?

It’s tough to put my finger on, but I think Snyder is so slavish to the source material, he can’t make it his own. I think that’s why I found myself aligned with Tom Charity’s review over at CNN.

To quote Charity, “‘Visionary’ director Zack Snyder, as the marketing would have it, has filmed Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ graphic novel by treating the comic book panels as his storyboard and his Bible.

Doesn’t it bother anyone that this is about as far from the definition of ‘visionary’ as it’s possible to get?

The visionary sees what others do not see. Snyder — whose previous films were a remake (Dawn of the Dead) and another scrupulously faithful comic book adaptation (300) — is more in the line of a fancy photocopier, duplicating other artists’ imagery with a forger’s intensity.

A visionary transforms the world. Snyder slavishly transcribes what’s set down 5 inches in front of his face.”

Snyder’s “vision” is so faithful to the graphic novel, I spent most of the movie going “Okay, that looked a lot like the graphic novel. What’s the next scene they’re going to do? Will it also look as much like the graphic novel? I’m gonna look really closely at the details.”

What happens is that you’re not focused on the movie. Snyder’s attention to detail is his gift and his curse. What he puts on screen is intrinsically distracting because he undermines the story with his visuals in a “lookit what I can do!” kind of way. The images and the story never work in concert. To me, his is now officially the Michael Bay of comic book movies.

I also take issue with the music selection in the film. It seems every transition into any new scene was punctuated by some iconic “song of the era” to let you know exactly when and where you were. Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound Of Silence,” KC & The Sunshine Band, “I’m Your Boogie Man,” Nena’s “99 Luftballons.” Each song selection was more clumsy and stupid than the last. None more so than the amped up cover of Dylan’s “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance.

Supercharged with punk vitriol as it stampedes over the closing credits, it is the exact WRONG mood to strike after the grim conclusion. I left the theater repulsed by the crass commercialism of it. I usually don’t pay attention to the music in movies all that closely, but if there was any film that could have benefited from a brooding, ominous orchestral score, Watchmen would be it.

Beyond that, my complaints are middling. I wasn’t impressed by either Carla Gugino or Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre and Silk Spectre II, respectively. I hate to single them out since I applauded the performances of the men so much. But Gugino was way over the top and arch while Akerman simply doesn’t have the chops.

Okay, in all fairness, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias was a foppish, lazy-eyed bore.

I was annoyed at how the fight scenes were staged. The prison riot was well done, but the climatic showdown in Antarctica was stupid (Fight! Talk! Fight! Talk!)

Also, when Dr. Manhattan is the only hero in the movie with superpowers, it makes no sense when other characters are able to run vertically up towers, punch through walls and kick people across a room. Each punch landing with a booming “THUD!” and bone-cracking revelry.

That’s another thing. Snyder is a little too in love with his vision of violence. A woman is shot through the shin, a thug’s elbow is bent backwards, bones jutting from his forearm, Dr. Manhattan causes a couple of gangsters to explode, their sticky entrails dangling from the ceiling. It’s brutish and unnecessary.

And before I forget… Sndyer’s signature move — the slow motion. Call my a cynic, but Watchmen probably would have been 30 minutes shorter if it had run in real time. To go back to Tom Charity’s point about visionary directing, The Wachowski’s “bullet time,” this is not.

I will freely admit to the possibility that I walked into Watchmen expecting to hate it, but I claim self-preservation. Watchmen is simply too important to be taken lightly and, frankly, I don’t think Snyder was the right man for the job.

Part of me feels like I need to see the movie a second time to judge it more fairly. Maybe the second time around I won’t be distracted by the expectation of what’s next or how faithfully it’s translated to the screen and I can just sit back and enjoy it. Maybe I can remove my fanboy filter and look at it as the movie it wants to be.

But at the same time I don’t feel compelled to run out and buy a ticket. Watchmen is kind of an ugly movie in spirit and it seems to embrace that ugliness for all the wrong reasons. Because of that, the movie isn’t easy to like. And again, you’re left asking yourself “What’s the point?”

Continuing my exploration of all things Up, today’s sketch is of Russell, of the Wilderness Adventurers. My version of Russ seems a little more awkward than what’s presented in the movie (if that’s possible). Consider this a version of Russell that’s maybe a few years older than his on-screen counterpart. I tried to stay loose with the sketch, but didn’t quite get the proportions right. To see the sketch, vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics.

Incidentally, Theater Hopper has been slipping down the list a little bit over at Top Web Comics and I’m wondering if it has any relation to the kind of sketches I’m doing.

In the past, I would draw sketches that were a continuation of the joke in the comic. Lately, I’ve been drawing more stand-alone pieces. Renderings of characters from movies. Is this a factor in your voting? Let me know in the comments below and be mindful of Monday, June 1 when the Top Web Comics counter resets. If we can get in the Top 10 early on, there’s a greater likelihood we can stay there! I’m going to need everyone’s help, so I’m putting the idea in your heads now.

As you know, both Up and Drag Me To Hell come out today. During Monday’s recording of The Triple Feature, Joe pointed out that the family-friendly film in competition with director Sam Raimi’s return to horror was great counter programming.

I felt like I was onto something when I commented that not only were the two movies at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their content, but also in terms of the geography they explored. Up floating among the clouds and Drag Me To Hell lurking in the depths of the Underworld.

I shared my observation to Cami and she said it was “quite profound.” She may have been humoring me, but it was enough for me to try and figure out a way I could work it into the comic.

As for the answer to Tom’s quandary in today’s comic, I don’t think it would surprise anyone that I’m more interested in seeing Up. Cami and I are seeing it tonight. But my interest has been piqued by the strong reviews Drag Me To Hell has been getting. I guess Joe from Joe Loves Crappy Movies saw an early screening of it and was over the moon about it. Critical response has been strong, too. 95% positive at Rotten Tomatoes. I guess Raimi still has the old horror touch!

I’m not a big fan of horror, but I respect Raimi a great deal. It goes without saying how awesome the Evil Dead trilogy is. But those films have a low-tech charm. I don’t know if I could stomach full-blown Raimi sitting in the middle of a booming surround-sound theater.

One thing Raimi is particularly adept at are “loud noises” scares – frightening reveals you can see a mile away, but punctuated by piercing musical shrieks. I HATE those kinds of scares. I do better with movies that employ this tactic when I’m at home and can control the volume.

I’m very curious to know what Raimi has up his sleeve, but I think this one is going to have to be a rental for me. I’m too much of a weenie otherwise.

What about you guys? Are you feeling up to the challenge of seeing Drag Me To Hell in a gigantic booming theater without peeing your pants? Or are you like me and going to chillax with Pixar and Up for two hours instead?

I know this was supposed to be a week of guest strips. But, well, I couldn’t really round one up for today. Chalk it up to poor planning. I decided late last week to take this week off and that’s not time enough for most artists with already busy schedules to drop what they’re doing and produce something for me.

I took time off this week partially to give myself a break from the comic and partially to work on some other projects that needed my attention. Primarily on a freelancing web site that I intend to use to attract clients and provide a temporary revenue stream while I look for more permanent work.

I have to admit I did not make much progress on that front. However, I kept busy this week applying for jobs and sending out resumes. I took a few meetings and had a few interviews. Fortunately, my experience is such that I attract the interest of most employers. At this point, it’s finding one who is willing to compensate fairly for that experience.

My freelance site aside, I did accomplish something else this week that actually benefits both of us and not just myself. I took some time this week to prepare the Theater Hopper store for a massive fire sale that I’m going to start promoting next week. I have a little bit of money saved up thanks to Project Wonderful and I plan on spreading it around a little bit in hopes of attracting people to my store and helping me clear out some inventory.

As of now, everything in the store is on sale. All books are $9.99. All shirts are $7.99. I’ve even dug out some old inventory I haven’t had on the site for a while in hopes of selling that as well – mostly baby doll tees in limited inventory for $4.99.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the main page in the store, you’ll see I’m selling the Iron Man parody poster I designed for Chicago Comic Con in early September. I have 49 left in stock and I’m selling them for $3.00 a piece.

The sale ends at Midnight on Sunday, September 20. I am motivated to get rid of as much inventory as possible, but I don’t know if I’ll do something like this again. So if you see something you want, now is the time to grab it.

I’m not particularly a fan of horror movies, but I do love a good ghost story. Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Harry Potter role appears to deliver in this adaptation of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. Take a look at the trailer below.

Sure, creepy dolls and photos with crossed out eyes are cheap horror movie tropes. The child’s narration is a little overdone, too. But I like the creeping menace in this film. That last shot in the trailer seals the deal.

Also, I never noticed until now how much Daniel Radcliffe without glasses looks like Patrick Dempsey. Is it me?

What do you think of this BONE CHILLING trailer? Leave your comments below. The Woman in Black hits theaters on February 13, 2012.

People you have NO IDEA how long this joke has been percolating. I think I came up with it months ago – on Twitter, naturally.

I don’t know why, but the term “retweeted” also kind of had this ominous tone to me. This, despite the fact that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with pithy one-liners to achieve exactly that designation.

But, y’know, think about it. Big, booming voice like James Earl Jones bellowing at you – “YOU’VE BEEN RETWEETED!” It would kind of shake you up a little, wouldn’t it?

Something else I’ll tell you, figuring out the logo for this fake movie took a lot longer than I thought it would! I guess I’m a stickler for these things. Although, in retrospect, a Twitter bird in a pool of blood is maybe a little on the nose.

And by the way, I’m completely aware of the anachronism of having a girl talk into an phone with a cord on it when I’m proselytizing for a horror movie about technology.

Not much else to say about the comic except that I hope you enjoyed it. But I will bring a couple of other issue to the fore:

I introduced a couple of new features to the comment area including giving you the ability to give a thumbs up/thumbs down to comments AND uploading images or files into the comment thread. Hopefully this will help promote greater conversation with the comics. Let me know how that works out for you!

I wanted to remind everyone that you can now buy prints of your favorite Theater Hopper comics. Just look for the “Buy Print” button in the comic navigation to submit your order. All comics are printed on 8.5 x 11″ cardstock and are signed by me. For $5.00 you can have a piece of Theater Hopper mailed to you in a re-enforced envelope. It’s a pretty good deal!

Lastly, there’s a conversation happening on the Theater Hopper Facebook page that I would like you to participate in. Recently, I got the wild idea to do a children’s book about manners at the movie theater. This project would likely use Theater Hopper characters in a different context and I think the idea has legs. The twist is that the kid already knows how to behave, but comments on the things ADULTS do that are inconsiderate. At any rate, I’d like your feedback on it and if you’re not following Theater Hopper on Facebook, maybe gimme a little “Like” action. We’re 6 followers away from 1,000 and I’d like to pass that mark sometime before I die. You could be a part of history!

Anyway, that’s all I have for right now. Thanks for checking out the comic. Don’t forget the ShareThis plug in at the bottom of the blog to share the comic through your social networks! Facebook it, Twitter it, Google+ it – Heck! Even e-mail it! Everything you do to spread the word helps.

I really don’t have anything to say about this week’s comic except that I decided to take the themes explored in last week’s comic and ran with them.

I guess as I thought more and more about a horror movie with social media elements, I figured that there had to be some kind of boogeyman to really stoke audience’s fears. Y’know, like Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger. Facebook’s Privacy Policy seemed as logical a choice as any to depict the embodiment of walking evil. So, there you go.